Official Comcast CableCard Thread!

On the pairing screen all I see is CableCARD(tm), and HOST ID:, but no DATA ID. and it says "Waiting for CP Auth"

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silypuddy said:

It looks like you have Scientific Atlanta cards. I have those and don't have a data id. I have a serial # on the back of the card and a host id that I get via the Tivo. The Comcast techs here just needed those two numbers.

From the message you posted, the card has not been properly auth'ed.

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I was just reading the TiVo cableCARD FAQ on the SA cards. It says :

Cannot View Copy-Protected Channels

For a CableCARD to display programming on copy-protected channels, the CableCARD must be paired, and it must also be subscribed to the channel. "Pairing" associates the CableCARD with the slot in which it is activated, and prevents the card from decoding copy-protected channels when installed in any other slot (or other host such as a TV).

The Auth Status field on the CP Information screen shows if the CableCARD is paired. Waiting for CP Auth means the CableCARD is unpaired; CP Auth Received, means the the card is paired.

The following examples show error conditions and a properly paired and authorized CableCARD.

Anyone have any recent "good" experience in San Jose (Comcast)? Got my new S3 last monday and Comcast sent out two techs friday morning... they plugged both cards in at the same time (i know... i know... they weren't in the mood to listen to a girl) did the nextel walkie thing, checked a couple of local channels and left... as they were pulling out of the driveway the tivo threw an error for cable card 2... i called the office and they tried to 'reauthorize' but no luck, so they sent the technician back... he came at the end of the day and swapped out the card in slot 2... did the nextel thing and i got some errors, but this time i got HBO so he left... after guided setup i found that i couldn't get any cinemax channels or showtime channels, so i called again... it looked to me (from the stuff i've read here) that card 2 is authorized but not paired... i gave the women on the phone the proper info to re-pair and she said she'd send a signal... the next morning no good, so i called again (sat) and asked to specifically re-pair... the csr said they were sending the re-pairing signal but it wasn't working, so they needed to roll a tech, again... today the tech showed up to say that he was told they had a batch of 'bad cards' and he didn't have any with him... i asked him to do the nextel thing and ask for a reinitialize (not reauthorize) and they tried... it blanked all the channels on card 2 and when it came back up i had most, but not showtime or cinemax channels... they're going to send a tech again (4th time) on tuesday but now it feels like they're just guessing...

did the fact that the original jokers plugged both cards in at the same time (initially) screw up the tivo, even though cable card 1 seems to be working perfectly?

should i have them install two new cards, one at a time?

any advice? drugs? strong drink?

many thanks... reading this board helps me to understand i'm not alone in this

well, here in the stocktcon, california area it was free for the first card, and about $2 for the second, per month.

that said... when the installer came out he'd never seen a tivo before. kept asking where the second tv was that needed the 2nd cable card. I basically walked him through the install process by reading from the tivo instructions...

first card did not even register with the hd tivo box, 2nd card tried in slot 1 got the expected response from the tivo. He insisted on installing the 2nd card before the first was fully working. He then called in to get them activated. waited around for an hour while the folks 'back at the office' did there thing. After an hour he said it was all done and that the service would start up soon. he then left. 30 minutes later no service.

I then went to check my email while i waited for 'real soon' to occur. my cable modem was dead... and i only got the standard comcast welcome on my browser telling me i needed to install the software to set up by cable service... mind you i've had this service for 5 years, and it was working 90 minutes ago.

Call comcast... 'gee, your modem has been totally reset'...

... and mind you, the cable cards are still not working...

the comcast guy on the phone was actually the only intelligent person i'd talked to so far at comcast. he finally get's the cable cards to work after 20 minutes on the phone. we had almost given up and he was scheduling another tech to come out when all of a sudden the first, and then 2 card started to work. evidently it took over 10 minutes for the last thing he tried to work it's way through the system...

he then , forwarded me to the internet folks... and they (after 15 minutes) fixed my cable modem problem... so i thought.

Now... the hd tivo works beautifully. love it. hate comcast.

all this started friday. enjoyed the tivo saturday and sunday.

wife tries to pull her email down on sunday night, first time using it since friday morning... Her email account no longer exists... i log on to find out it's been de-activated. actually wiped out clean, as i can't even re-activate it. When i try to re-add it, comcast complains that the account name is in use, please choose another name... yes, it's in use by us! but you've wiped it! geez!

my wife calls comcast... at this point i can't talk to these folks anymore... they re-activate her email account... and then proceed to tell us that we deleted it, not them. never mind all the issues we had with them resetting our internet 2 days ago, or that neither of us had logged on since...

does anyone know if the cablecard pairing process is done the same way for a TiVo as it would be for a tv? I'm trying to understand how it could be so complicated for them to get it right.

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Yes, they have just as many problems with them in TVs but since few if any TVs are made with Cable Card slots these days, a Cable Card installation in a TV set is very, very rare (hence the inexperience and Cable Card incompetence of most cable techs).

...did the fact that the original jokers plugged both cards in at the same time (initially) screw up the tivo, even though cable card 1 seems to be working perfectly?

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There have been just as many failures with the one at a time method as with just shoving them in. One probably ought to follow the TiVO instructions just to be sure, especially if problems are already manifest. If I were installing dual cable cards as a job with a time schedule and other places to go I would insert one, wait for the MMI screen to pop up, copy down the information, verify that information, insert the second card, wait for the MMI screen to pop up, copy down the information, verify that information, call in both cards at once (since the bottle neck seems to be connecting with a person on the other end capable of activating the cards), check an encrypted channel, be on my way.

Just wanted to report my experience with CableCard install (HD Tivo) in NW Chicago suburbs (Mt. Prospect Comcast office).
Was told can only be done by a tech. Told the phone rep M-Card was needed.
The tech showed up with 3 M Cards. I asked him if he's done many of these and he said not much. I then produced Tivo instructions for installing the card and said I'd take care of it. He copied the numbers off the card, I did the same just in case (2 minutes).
After the card was in (another 2 minutes) he waited for about 25 minutes on hold to initialize the card. He gave up and called his supervisor who told him to call a different Nextel number who was supposed to be a dedicated CableCard activation tech. After trying that number for 5 minutes, he's gone on a wild goose chase trying to call anyone he could think of. After 15 minutes of that, the "dedicated CableCard tech" called him back. After 2 minutes the CableCard was active, for some reason I did not even get an error described for Motorola M cards.
I've gone over channel testing (all were fine) and let him go after about an hour, out of which any actions actually took less than 10 minutes.
OM

Comcast Rohnert Park (near petaluma and santa rosa), california. tech came out saturday, installed one M-card. looked at a few channels, they were coming in, checked the HD channels, they were coming in, so, seemed fine (i have standard cable, no premium channels, and have a comcast DVR that's going back today).

got a chance to browse around last night, and discovered that i'm only getting up through channel 35. checked online, and it seems they switched me to 'digital starter package', whatever that is. channel lineup still shows i should be getting channels beyond 35. called them up, they asked me to confirm the serial numberS of my cardS. i said i only had the one M-card. they said i need two cards to get the rest of my channels. which makes no sense to me. i told them the M-card should be all i need, they said that might be, but that they have no clue there at the office - supervisor even confirmed they know nothing about cable cards - so a tech will have to come out to install another card.

can this possibly be right? multistream is supposed to give me the two-tuner ability - it shouldn't have anything to do with getting channels over 35, right? very frustrating. glad i still have my old analog sony tivo, still running, so i can still get the other channels until this is sorted out. argh.

Comcast Rohnert Park (near petaluma and santa rosa), california. tech came out saturday, installed one M-card. looked at a few channels, they were coming in, checked the HD channels, they were coming in, so, seemed fine (i have standard cable, no premium channels, and have a comcast DVR that's going back today).

got a chance to browse around last night, and discovered that i'm only getting up through channel 35. checked online, and it seems they switched me to 'digital starter package', whatever that is. channel lineup still shows i should be getting channels beyond 35. called them up, they asked me to confirm the serial numberS of my cardS. i said i only had the one M-card. they said i need two cards to get the rest of my channels. which makes no sense to me. i told them the M-card should be all i need, they said that might be, but that they have no clue there at the office - supervisor even confirmed they know nothing about cable cards - so a tech will have to come out to install another card.

can this possibly be right? multistream is supposed to give me the two-tuner ability - it shouldn't have anything to do with getting channels over 35, right? very frustrating. glad i still have my old analog sony tivo, still running, so i can still get the other channels until this is sorted out. argh.

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As long as it's the TiVo HD and not the Series 3 unit you've got, the M-card will take care of both tuners.

In any event, that wouldn't be the cause of only receiving channels below 35; they've got something coded wrong on their authorization system. It has nothing to do with your CableCARD. Good luck convincing them of that, though.

As long as it's the TiVo HD and not the Series 3 unit you've got, the M-card will take care of both tuners.

In any event, that wouldn't be the cause of only receiving channels below 35; they've got something coded wrong on their authorization system. It has nothing to do with your CableCARD. Good luck convincing them of that, though.

I am having my cablecard installed on my Tivo HD. It is a M-card. Pairing, Host Id, etc has been checked but only certain channels are coming up. Comcast is telling me it sometimes take up to two hours to get all channels. Is this correct or should all channels work as soon as the install is finished?

Edit: I guess I'll report back and see if it actually works for all channels in a few hours. The tech was here for nearly 4 hours. Had never installed a cablecard on a Tivo before. Comcast just doesn't tell its techs anything before sending them out on these jobs. The people the tech was talking to at Comcast don't seem to know all that much about cablecards. The guy had put two cablecards in before I noticed. I realized after looking around to see why stuff wasn't working, he had put in one M-card and one S-card and the supervisor he was talking to didn't even know! I had him only put one card and that's when the card started tuning only certain channels. Looks like the guy had to talk to several people at Comcast before someone told him it's supposed to take a few hours to get all the channels. So it turns out he probably could've been here a few hours less because that was the status as soon as he used just one card.

Btw, this was after Comcast had told me three times on the phone that they don't carry M-cards and that they would have to use 2 S-cards.

I am having my cablecard installed on my Tivo HD. It is a M-card. Pairing, Host Id, etc has been checked but only certain channels are coming up. Comcast is telling me it sometimes take up to two hours to get all channels. Is this correct or should all channels work as soon as the install is finished?hat they would have to use 2 S-cards.

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The question is, did you get a Motorola card or a Scientific Atlanta card? For the former, it is instant. For the latter, it takes time for the channels to come in. Here is the TiVo cableCARD FAQ. (The only other reason it can take time is if you call in all of the numbers to a CSR who has to forward all the info to someone in the cableCARD division who updates the computer when they get around to it, usually within an hour. If a tech is there, he/she has bypassed the CSR.)

I called Comcast. The CSR is not sure that the tech had a signal sent thru to the box and this signal needs to be sent thru in order for those other channels to work. Also, I have a special rate card on my account that is locked (has to do with a promotion that was available when I signed up for Comcast but isn't available anymore). The CSR had to unlock that rate card in order to make changes on my account and thinks that might've been the problem. That CSR told me to wait an hour for the channels to load and indeed it did take an hour but they did load this time! I finally have all my cable channels!!

So the problem was either that the tech didn't request that a signal be sent to the box (required for those other channels to load) or the rate card issue, just in case someone has similar problems.

My local Comcast office told me that I could get 2 CableCards free, no charge for the installation, and I'd get local HD channels free as well. So I've scheduled a truck roll for Monday afternoon. I'm a bit nervous about the whole thing based on my horror stories here. Can somebody point me to a CableCard Installation FAQ? I want to have my proverbial ducks in a row when the tech arrives to make sure it is done correctly.

I went to the Tivo web site and found "Installing CableCARDs in a Series3 HD DVR", but when I click the link, I get "The page you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable." I sure hope it is just "temporarily unavailable".

well its tuesday and looks like there trying to avoid coming out again, the tech called this morning said he'll talk to his supervisor about the problem im having with the cablecards, told him i doubt that'll be of any help since ive already heard from his supervisor and he's just as clueless and that they need to come over and talk to tivo on the phone while trying to install them, he told me he'll call me back in a little while. i'm pretty sure there just going to have me waiting all day with no one showing up again, so looks like i'll be going to return my tivo box tonight and cancel my cable. oh well, thanks for the help anyways.

I talked with a senior manager today for the Baltimore area (Howard County). She is great and is going to ensure I get the Digital Starter with the free m-card. The monthly cost should be 56.95. She also gave me the contact info for a senior tech if there are any issues.

We talked about the global problem with their CR reps having/giving false info...she apologized and would talk with the reps that had dealt with me to help educate them. I know this won't change the whole company, just maybe my little corner.